Is it possible to think without language?

Well, I'm really more interested in ants than birds (as for observation) and I believe you, if you say so.
Do you think that there is no innate knowledge? Btw, in defence, knowledge doesn't mean skill. I may know how to build a house, but it doesn't mean that it will turn out good.

 

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No, I do not see a justification for innate knowledge, only predispositions based on ability and engrained pleasurable and displeasurable responses, perhaps induced through natural selection's weeding out of things which would be negative to the overall survivability of the individual of the species in question.

 

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lol, i'm not a girl..
or a man...
i'm a human being.

 

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foals will attempt to stand and walk very shortly after birth, this is the result of innate knowledge not a sign of mimicking. A foal would do the same if blindfolded after birth.

 

More on innate knowledge- copied from web

"The next principle we must examine is innate knowledge: knowing something without learning it through experience; commonly referred to as instinctive response. The amount of knowledge a creature is born with is truly remarkable, involving complex skills that have never been taught. There is a school of thought (Empiricists), which contends that the information gained from experience is the source of all knowledge; but considerable evidence to the contrary has muted this point of view. Arguing that instinctive knowledge is not knowledge as such, is purely semantics; being aware of how to perform an intricate series of actions, in order to achieve a desired goal, can be interpreted as nothing other than having this information in your mind: knowing it.

For my first example, I will use a well-known experiment, that you could perform yourself. Obtain chicken eggs, that are ready to hatch, from a company that supplies chicks to farmers. Once the chicks have hatched, and are dry and alert; place them in a large box with a light overhead, and pass the silhouette of a bird of prey over the box, so that a shadow passes over them. The chicks will react by crouching down, or moving to the walls of the box; and will be noticeably agitated. Now pass the silhouette of a duck over the fledglings; they will not react. This experiment establishes that chickens have innate knowledge: they can identify a predator, know what defensive action to take, and are able to determine the difference between types of birds (tests have concluded that they check for neck length relative to body size: birds of prey have short necks). There are several interesting aspects to this demonstration. The most obvious, is that the chicks have never seen a predator; or even a chicken, for that matter. Going further: these birds have not encountered a natural threat in hundreds of generations; they have been genetically engineered to gain maximum weight and maturity in a matter of weeks, rather than years, and are incapable of living a normal life span. They live out their existence inside a barn, often in cages; and experience nothing outside of their captivity. Yet, even with excessive inbreeding, they have knowledge of the natural world. The fact that these creatures start life as simple fertilized eggs, that are nurtured inside a machine until ready to hatch, isolates them from even the most indirect forms of parental influence; but they retain a species identity: knowing what to eat, how to mate, and care for offspring; and behave exactly as chickens do"

 

Theoryofrelativity:

"foals will attempt to stand and walk very shortly after birth, this is the result of innate knowledge not a sign of mimicking. A foal would do the same if blindfolded after birth. "

At birth, human children flail about and begin to cry and attempt to spit out the mucus and such in their mouths.

"[. . .] Yet, even with excessive inbreeding, they have knowledge of the natural world. The fact that these creatures start life as simple fertilized eggs, that are nurtured inside a machine until ready to hatch, isolates them from even the most indirect forms of parental influence; but they retain a species identity: knowing what to eat, how to mate, and care for offspring; and behave exactly as chickens do"

Human beings have a natural aversion to pain. Pain obviously evolved in order to prevent the subject from harming himself and fleeing from harm. Can not then we explain the fear of these chickens in the same way? Visual stimuli resulting in a painful (or otherwise sensational) manner? It would not imply -knowledge-, only -reaction-. A child needn't have knowledge to pull his hand from a fire, simply reaction.

And as to such things as knowing how to eat, that has much to do with reaction to stimuli both external and internal, as well as sexual urges. Caring for offspring, moreover, can be accounted for by both engrained reactions to pleasurable stimuli, as well as actual applied knowledge, specifically in the dynamic relationship living beings must have with one another.

 

The foal walking is NOT the same as a reaction to pain. One implies a desire to do something and a knowledge of how to do it...all be it innate, innate IMO refering to knwoeldge that is subconscious not necc conscious, such as the knowledge that dictates how regular our heart beats. The other is a reaction to stimuli that is damaging. Those born without the ability to feel pain do not react to dangerous stimuli and DO NOT naturally avoid fire. The innate ability to do so is thus non existant. The automatic response to doing so is thus none existant, it is a learned response, very much so.

Anyone with kids knows they have to learn to avoid things. One thing babies do seem aware of (innnately) when they get to crawl stage (5-6 months) re danger is slopes and sheer drops. I am sure you are aware of the baby on glass floor experiment, with mother other side? And baby on checkered floor that gives illusion of dropping away when it does not but baby avoids the imaginary drop non the less.

re the chicken fearing birds, you say this implies a 'sensation' response to the stimuli thus causing the aversion, possibly correct. This sensation then implies that within that animal is some sort of mechanism that knows that this bigger bird is harmful, hence the causation of the sensation. Where does that innate knowledge reside within the animal and where did it derive from?

This 'sensational' reaction to the bird is the result of innate knowledge.

 

TheoryOfRelativity:

"The foal walking is NOT the same as a reaction to pain. One implies a desire to do something and a knowledge of how to do it...all be it innate, innate IMO refering to knwoeldge that is subconscious not necc conscious, such as the knowledge that dictates how regular our heart beats. The other is a reaction to stimuli that is damaging. Those born without the ability to feel pain do not react to dangerous stimuli and DO NOT naturally avoid fire. The innate ability to do so is thus non existant. The automatic response to doing so is thus none existant, it is a learned response, very much so. "

You misunderstood me. I did not intend that the foal's walking was a result of pain. I said that generally when born, babies -move-. In the case of the foal, this movement results in standing and walking. Note that a foal is born basically plopping to the ground and that horses show a natural dislike of laying down when they can help it. Similarly, in order to reach the mother's milk (which likely smells very good to them as well as the presence of their mother being comforting) they must find some way of movement, and in the horse, this is walking. In human beings, it is generally a type of crawling grabbing at that point, in that bipedal motion is both inherently unstable (look how difficult it is to stand in rigid place without constantly moving minute weight distributions!) and takes a long time to master. Horse movement, on the other hand, is far less, being that quadruped motion is naturally stable.

"Anyone with kids knows they have to learn to avoid things. One thing babies do seem aware of (innnately) when they get to crawl stage (5-6 months) re danger is slopes and sheer drops. I am sure you are aware of the baby on glass floor experiment, with mother other side? And baby on checkered floor that gives illusion of dropping away when it does not but baby avoids the imaginary drop non the less."

Actually, I have never heard of that experiment, but that is very interesting. The idea of droppign must be rather frightening to a child and this experiment does seem to confirm it!

"re the chicken fearing birds, you say this implies a 'sensation' response to the stimuli thus causing the aversion, possibly correct. This sensation then implies that within that animal is some sort of mechanism that knows that this bigger bird is harmful, hence the causation of the sensation. Where does that innate knowledge reside within the animal and where did it derive from?"

Is it knowledge if it is but a reaction to certain things? That is to say, humans are innately fearful of large noises. Blare a discordant noise near a baby and he will break out into tears, so much so that he can even be conditioned to be pathologically fearful of the stimuli connected to it. I postulate that such a fear is inherent in birds in much the same way, developing as natural aversions seem to be condusive to the survival of certain species. That this is knowledge, however, cannot be contended, as again its nature is reactionary. Indiana Jones' fear of snakes would be a conscious fear, for he has come to fear them through their danger and, apparently, their repulsive nature to him.

 

Babies do not crawl or anything close when first born and this business of them knowing what a breast is for and how to use it is also false, what they do know is how to suck, that is it. They have to be introduced to the breast and latched on and it is NOT an easy thing to do hence many women in western world give up and bottle feed, or end up with sore cracked nipples.

Walking re the foal does demonstrate innate knowledge, IT IS an incredibly complex process, balance being easier than for bipedal is dispuatable given the foals design when first born, extremely thing long legs and FOUR legs to co-ordinate instead of two. In humans we have to learn how to walk, it does not come natural, we observe and we attempt to immitate and it takes months to master from when we first stand holiding onto an object.

The foal needs no such learning, they get to their feet and stand and walk.

The fact no 'learning' is required for all this implies innate knowledge. This is what innate knowledge is, the ability to do something that otherwise we'd have to be taught to do or learn through pain etc.

Humans are not innately fearful of large sounds, when a baby is first born they are tested with loud noises to test their hearing, they do not react fearfully rather they merely turn towards the noise. If the noise is unexpected
a baby (as an adult ) may look startled as there is an interuption to whatever
the thinking state is at that time and thus the reaction is one of being 'awoken' rather than being afraid of unseen foe.

Regarding birds reacting fearfully to other birds from birth as oppose to being taught to be afraid, this does imply innate knowledge as again I ask you...where does this 'reaction come from?'. How does the new born even recognise the larger bird as a predator? When we are born we can't recognise shapes or diffrentiate one object from another, we have to learn everything.

We are not naturally afraid of anything except after a while separation from our mothers, because we quickly learn mom is God and provides us with everything we need. Other fears come the more we learn about our world.

 

TheoryOfRelativity:

"Babies do not crawl or anything close when first born and this business of them knowing what a breast is for and how to use it is also false, what they do know is how to suck, that is it. They have to be introduced to the breast and latched on and it is NOT an easy thing to do hence many women in western world give up and bottle feed, or end up with sore cracked nipples."

They make as much effort as their very uncooperative bodies allow. And by "crawl/grab" I meant their pawing motion towards the breast when they suck.

But yes, there are difficulties of course.

"Walking re the foal does demonstrate innate knowledge, IT IS an incredibly complex process, balance being easier than for bipedal is dispuatable given the foals design when first born, extremely thing long legs and FOUR legs to co-ordinate instead of two. In humans we have to learn how to walk, it does not come natural, we observe and we attempt to immitate and it takes months to master from when we first stand holiding onto an object."

Quadrupeds may indeed have long and skinny legs, with a necessity to coordinate two, but by virtue of the arrangement of four legs supporting the bulk of the weight at a most conveinent spot, lends itself towards natural stability. Consider, for instance, that a two legged table is unstable, and then consider it in light of a shifting being. Consider also how difficult it has been for robots with general bipedal locomotion to be constructed, also.

Similarly, we can account for some stability via further recourse to propensity towards stability. I know, for instance, that birds have entire sections of their brains devoted to flight and the myriad things necessary to make them so agile in the sky, and as I am pretty certain so do mammals have portions or their brains (as well as the ear) devoted to stability.

"Humans are not innately fearful of large sounds, when a baby is first born they are tested with loud noises to test their hearing, they do not react fearfully rather they merely turn towards the noise. If the noise is unexpected
a baby (as an adult ) may look startled as there is an interuption to whatever
the thinking state is at that time and thus the reaction is one of being 'awoken' rather than being afraid of unseen foe."

This seems to be contradicted by tests on Baby Albert, which used the fear (and pain) inducing stimulus of loud noises, to evoke an almost catatonic response to the stimuli he was conditioned against. Similarly, when the fight-or-flight response is triggered through such startlings, and the sounds often provoke in the subject a sense of profound alarm and other sensations entire correlate to fear (accelerated heartbeat and screaming), it is hard to say "loud noises do not invoke fear in humans innately".

"Regarding birds reacting fearfully to other birds from birth as oppose to being taught to be afraid, this does imply innate knowledge as again I ask you...where does this 'reaction come from?'. How does the new born even recognise the larger bird as a predator? When we are born we can't recognise shapes or diffrentiate one object from another, we have to learn everything."

I imagine it stems from the same thing that invoked an almost universal fight-or-flight triggering response in humans when met with the same loud sounds or with unexpected graspings. That is, nature selected against those which were constructed as to be immune against these fears and which met bad ends in the process. Similarly, the differentation of shapes is likely not an issue with birds, whose keen eyesight may not have the failings of human's at birth. That there -is- visual recognition of the shapes is of course demonstrated by the fact that the different silhouettes of the birds are not reacted to in the same way and this information could only be found visually.

 

PJ, we shall agree to disagree

 

What if there is no language to describe a thought - which could be a sensory image?

Can dreams be classed as (night) thoughts?

If so, then dreams frequently have 'thoughts' that cannot easily transcribe into language as we know it.

I have a theory that we are hampered in manifesting scientific or religious 'proof' simply because we do not have adequate language.

Associations make it difficult or limiting to give the 'thought' or idea or image appropriate novelty or strength to take us - and it - beyond its limits.

Euphrosene

 

Euphrosene:

How do we have dreams which "cannot translate easily into language as we know it"? I have never had a dream myself which I could not describe. Did you mean something like that?

TheoryOfRelativity:

Fair enough. But we could continue if you'd prefer that, too.

 

It's quite easy to see this with visual thinking. Not having "the right words" always sucks. I hold to the saying that "pictures say a thousand words." However, if you write these words out.. you would still feel like "something is missing."

And then being forced to use language to convey ideas (since no one can see your mind)... you find it hard, if not impossible, to covey your ideas with completeness. Language will also narrow your viewing field.

At least that is my experience. Trying to explain my math veruses demonstrating to someone I can do it shows the language I use is lacking somewhere. Am I simply following rules I memorized or do I really understand what I am doing? Only I know that... and I cannot explain to someone that I do. Maybe I didn't choose the right words? One word can mean something else to someone else. It's apparent when we argue over definitions. Check the "Stars are alive" thread. Or the thread about language.

 

You are lucky then. Or maybe not. I have frequently had dreams for which words (one form of language) have not been sufficient - and I would not describe myself as inarticulate.

 

I think we agree?

 

hehe.

Ever smell music in your sleep? Or hear light? Taste roughness or softness?

Almost like LSD. How to explain? Eh. Someone else tell me.

Likely. Your words seem to resonate with my feelings on the topic of language.

Language exists to convey thoughts. However thoughts are independent of any human language.

 

If we are unable to think without language, how did we think beore language developed (because you needed thinking to develop language)?

 

Maybe there is a sensory language, mind meld type of thing, where we merge with the image or person or whatever... A bit sci-fi but it's not exactly provable!

 

Does LSD really do that?